A true crime story documented with a solid cast and townspeople of Carthage, where the plot's real life murder took place.
The dialogue of the townspeople alone are enough to make this film worth watching, but Jack Black does a superior job of encapsulating a man too-kind for this world who finds himself committing and living with murder. Shirley MacLaine isn't in this movie enough, but her character probably is represented better through the (very real) scathing descriptions of her peers. Even Matthew McConaughey is in top form with his character acting (but honestly, between this and every other Texan he's played, I think I would like him consistently if he played these all too familiar characters rather than the Rom-Com heroes that I have no interest watching).
Critics of Richard Linklater will probably not anticipate a return to cinema verite style ala Dazed and Confused or Slacker, nor should they expect jittery storytelling like A Scanner Darkly or mainstream production like School of Rock. His deliberate choice to interview townspeople and actors portraying townspeople make this a unique Linklater experience worth seeing.